Letters
by Alyss Mainwaring
Summary: Now we text, then they wrote letters. These are those letters, each giving a small insight into moments of their lives. Chapter 1 set right after bk 4.


_**From Will to Horace**_

 _ **Set just after the end of book 4**_

 _ **I can't exactly remember how the book ends… what I mean will be apparent in the beginning of the letter, and as I am house sitting (yet again) I can't do anything to check or fix it. If someone tells me that I messed up I might go back and change it, but knowing my past record I wont bother.**_

 _ **So sorry, but not really at the same time.**_

* * *

Horace,

I wonder, how are things in the castle? Is it any different to Redmont? Do they accept you there?

Would they have accepted me? Did I make the right decision? Is Cassie annoyed at me? I did think about my decision, well as much as I was able to at that point, and it wasn't right. I have grown to love the life with Halt and the peace at the cabin, for all I wasn't there for the last long period of time. I apologise for my abruptness, there are some moments when I have to pause and think for a while, not often granted to me as you saw.

Was Evanlyn too upset when she heard that I was going to continue as a Ranger's apprentice? Did she question why I chose to stay on as a Ranger, even though it isn't a social lift? Even though I will most likely never have any more friends than you guys and the fellow Rangers in the corps? Even though it is more likely to kill me than if I had chosen to remain in Araluen?

I don't understand any of my own thoughts but I might as well at least attempt to help you to understand the few I do.

A Ranger's life is lonely, I do know this, but at the same time the peace from living simply in the cabin is something that I have become used to. The whole time I was gone, well the aspects I remember, all I wanted was to return. I wanted to hear the comforting, familiar noise of Halt shooting an arrow. The animals sound different in that cold, frozen waste land, you know. There is an option of living simply in the cabin that also drags me towards it. I know I wanted to be a knight at first, but I have worked so hard to get to where I am that it almost seems mute to give it all up that quickly.

It isn't just the cabin that I came back for. Getting to know Halt was been strange certainly, and I'm sure an addiction to coffee wont be good for my health in the long run, but he does actually care. I'm not too certain, but I feel as though he is the closest I will ever get to a father. He is doing all that I imagined a father to do in life; train the child in their profession, encourage them along, standing there whilst letting their child made a decision, rescuing them. Like I said, I don't understand, probably to the same extent that you do.

I know that had I gone to do an apprenticeship there then I probably would have finished before I will finish mine here. I don't know for certain how much time I have missed, but what I do know is that I have to make it all back up again. If I fail the tests (I don't know if you know about these, but if you didn't then I didn't mention it) for me to progress onto the next year of my training, then not only will Halt be annoyed with me, but I will! Another year! Can't you just imagine that? I don't want to.

Every time I walk past the battle school I hear Sir Rodney talking to the trainees there mentioning you and what you have managed to achieve. They all appear jealous and annoyed so next time you visit don't hit them too hard that they want to do home crying to their families? I think that would give them an unfair advantage.

You will come to visit right? It would grow lonely here without you around all the time, or at least whenever the two of us got enough time off at the same moments. Yes, Alyss, Jenny and George are here but they are all working as well and just don't understand what it is like to be in another country doing the things we had to do.

Anyway, If you need someone to help you work on your parry that you were taught by Gilan what feels like such a long time ago, then go bug Crowley. He is a grouch, but us Rangers only believe its because of all the chair riding he does. He should get out and do more and I highly doubt he will refuse you. If he does grab him by the arm and drag him out.

Halt just heard me snickering over what I just wrote and asked me as to what "mischief I was concocting now that was going to certainly end in disaster". I told him what I suggested to you and he agrees. Actually he said to do something a little worse, but should this fall into the wrong hands I wouldn't want them to think of Halt as a rude, cranky, old bastard, instead of just a cranky, old bastard.

Please don't think that I don't appreciate what you and Evanlyn did for me. I wouldn't be here without the two of you and can you make sure she knows that? There are moments that I worry that she thinks otherwise because I declined the offer.

Face it. I couldn't give up the shaggy pony named Tug, and the archers would have wanted me to have gotten a different horse.

Who am I kidding?

-Will


End file.
